Brain Food #424
The purpose of comedy
Daily Brain Food.
Thoughts of the day
Today is April Fools’ Day.
The purpose of the day itself, like its origins, is disputed. Do we need a day dedicated to lying and fake news, when this seems to be the other, uncontrollable plague of our society? Or all we all in much need of a day that asks us not to take things as seriously, and opt for a carefree laugh.
French playwright Molière said, “Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.”
We mock the things that intimidate us, or the things that scare us. What comedy does is give us a different mode of thinking: it helps us defy the darkness of the world, choosing instead to mock the tragedies of the absurd lives we lead, instead of feeling sorrowful about them.
Comedy appears even in more highbrow fields.
Duchamp was perhaps art’s first great satirist. In the below, he took a postcard of the Mona Lisa, defaced it, and renamed it L.H.O.O.Q., a series of letters which, when pronounced in French, sound like "Elle a chaud au cul" which roughly translates to ‘she has a hot ass.’
